Judges 14

1Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman there from the daughters of the Philistines.

2He went up and told his father and mother, saying, "I have seen a woman in Timnah among the daughters of the Philistines. Now get her for me as a wife."

3His father and mother said to him, "Is there no woman among your brothers' daughters or in all my people, that you go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" Samson said to his father, "Take her for me, for she is right in my eyes."

4His father and mother were unaware it came from Yahweh, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines ruled Israel.

5Samson and his father and mother went down to Timnah, and they reached the vineyards of Timnah. Behold, a young lion roared to meet him.

6Yahweh's Spirit rushed upon him, and he tore it apart as one tears a kid, with nothing in his hand, but he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

7He went down and spoke to the woman, and she was right in Samson's eyes.

8Some days later he returned to take her, turned aside to see the lion's carcass, and there—behold—a swarm of bees in the lion's body, and honey.

9He scraped it into his hands and went along eating as he traveled, went to his father and mother, gave it to them, and they ate, but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the lion's carcass.

10His father went down to the woman, and Samson held a banquet there, for so the young men do.

11When they saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.

12Samson said to them, "Please let me pose a riddle to you: if you can declare it to me within the seven days of the banquet and find it, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes."

13But if you cannot tell it to me, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes. They said to him, "Pose your riddle, that we may hear it."

14He said to them, "Food came from the eater, and sweetness from the strong." They could not explain the riddle for three days.

15On the seventh day they said to Samson's wife, "Entice your husband to reveal the riddle to us, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you called us to dispossess us? Is it not so?"

16Samson's wife wept before him and said, "You hate me without loving me—you posed a riddle to the sons of my people but did not reveal it to me." He said to her, "See, I have not revealed it to my father or my mother, and shall I reveal it to you?"

17She wept before him the seven days of their feast. On the seventh day, because she pressed him so hard, he told her, and she told the riddle to the sons of her people.

18The men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun set, "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" He said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found my riddle."

19Yahweh's spirit surged upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck thirty of their men, took their garments, and gave changes of clothes to those who explained the riddle. His anger burned, and he went up to his father's house.

20But Samson's wife was given to his companion, who had kept company with him.